Home? We were almost at home now, with the stars and stripes floating so near us!
The "Don" and the "Marjorie." What could be more propitious?
"I hope you won't scold me, Don," said Marjorie, in a low voice, "but I have taken a liberty that perhaps I should have spoken about beforehand."
"Take any liberty you like, sweetheart," I answered. "I am yours now, to do what you please with."
She drew off one of her gloves and advancing a hand asked me to inspect it. After doing so for a minute I told her I saw nothing except the dearest hand in the world; upon which I took it up and kissed it.
"Don't you notice that I am wearing another ring?" she said, flushing.
She certainly was: A gold ring at that and a plain one. It was on her wedding finger, too.
My first thought was that she had summoned a minister and married me during my illness. This was too good to be true and I at once dismissed it.
"You are not yet quite well," she explained, demurely, "and I shall have to be in your cabin frequently. I thought it best to avoid attracting notice, and as I had that ring of my mother's--I just--put it on."
"But our names on the passenger list?" I said.
"That is all arranged. We are Mr. and Mrs. Camwell."
It was bliss enough for one day. Nothing but the purest thoughts regarding her could enter my head now. She was to be my wife!
The next morning she arranged a pleasant way to pass the time. Our cabin was very large and roomy, and she said she could go on with my "novel" quite as well there as on shore. She made me recline on my berth, which had no other above it, and dictation was therefore done entirely at my ease. It was undoubtedly better for me to keep my mind actively employed, and the task to which I set myself was a most agreeable one. My darling recorded the lines I gave her, with rapidity, and made very few audible comments that day, although it was evident from the tell-tale expression of her mobile countenance that she was keenly alive to each situation I detailed. The lines that seemed to affect her most were those wherein I confessed the depth, the sincerity and the purity of the love that had sprung up in my heart.
She could not complain that I was misrepresenting her own part in these affairs, for I thought no alteration could improve a straightforward statement of the real facts as they appeared to me. She winced a little--I thought more about that afterwards--when I referred to seeing Wesson in my stateroom on the Pretoria and again when I spoke of meeting him in close converse with Edgerly in Barbados.